Arenafixed
by flourwings
Summary: The Reapings for the 11th Annual Hunger Games go mostly as the ten games before them have gone. The tributes are chosen, or, in some cases, choose themselves. A few of them scream and sob. A few smile. Mostly they stand there quietly, throats stopped up with their fear, unable to do more than breath and blink their eyes. And all of them, save one, will die.
1. The Note Desolation Reaps

One by one, each batch of footage from the Reapings comes in. There are seventeen people sitting in a closed room in the Gamemaking Center, and when the first package pings in they all start in surprise and sit up straight and give each other half-hearted smiles. This team of editors work under the Senior Assistant Gamemaker, and it is their job to cut the hours and hours of Reaping film together into something respectable. The fruits of their labor will be the first televised event of the 11th Annual Hunger Games.

"The Best Case Scenario," says the Gamemaker, each capital letter clear, "is that every Reaping finishes at about the same time, that each Reaping occurs without incident, and that no Reaping deviates from the prescribed procedures. But some districts take longer than others, and mishaps happen, and disruptions, and volunteers. No two districts are quite the same. Frankly, we're going to have quite a fucking mess to deal with here. Not to mention what I've heard about that little monster in District 9."

In District 1, they dress up. This isn't the Capitol, but it's close. A sparkling pin in a girl's hair, black shiny shoes, a new gaudy yellow shirt, a dress with silver stitching. Eridan Ampora buys a cape for the occasion, a silly purple thing that he has to hold awkwardly to keep it from touching the ground. _This is my year_ , he thinks, walking up the steps to the stage, his eyes bright with triumph, and a fistful of purple cloth in each hand. In the crowd below, a gold-bangled Meenah Peixes waits for her turn.

District 2 has its Reaping in the shadow of a mountain peak. At these high altitudes, the green-skinned and pink-haired Capitol representatives are dizzy and short of breath. The peacekeepers, though — they are home. They breathe the clear cold air and smile. In Aradia Megido's long hair they see their sisters, smiling nervously and preparing for their own Reaping Days so many years ago. In her calloused and rope-burned quarry-worker hands, they see their mothers, returning from work with a sweat-soaked brow. In her face they see the victims of their peacekeeping, terrified and dead and screaming. And in Terezi Pyrope, they see themselves.

In District 3, both their tributes are small and unassuming. Sollux Captor, who works in a spare parts depot and is now one of his district's two hopeless hopes, eyes the girl who stands opposite him. Curly-haired and obviously hungover, she looks as if she's about to be sick. _Oh god_ , Sollux thinks, as Roxy Lalonde drops to her knees and loses her stomach, _oh god, I am so sorry for what will happen to you._

District 4 is rowdy. People push each other and jockey for a better view. Their feet get stepped on and their ribs get elbowed. As Vriska Serket shoves the boy in front of her to the ground and yells "I volunteer!", a girl in a pale pink dress watches quietly from the back of the crowd. She knows that these people will eat each other alive, that this tribute will tear out the throats of her competitors, that these workers and parents and children around her will shout and curse but swallow the broadcasts whole. This quiet girl is Feferi Peixes, and she's going to change the world.

The tributes from District 5 are quiet, too. Dirk Strider crackles with a silent electric energy, perhaps imbued by his job as a generator technician, perhaps as inherent as his dark skin and sharp hair. Aranea Serket has a different and stranger energy about her. In the distance, she watches the water break across the top of the great dam and crash to the river below. The wet misty spray creeps all the way down to the Reaping stage, touching the tributes with cold and insubstantial hands.

District 6's Reaping passes quickly. There are a few noises of pity from the crowd as Gamzee Makara has to be helped up to the stage, stumbling and strung-out on morphling, smiling a vacant smile. The second tribute, John Egbert, though more coordinated and cogent, seems mostly unfazed by his reaping as well. Later, on the train or at the Capitol, it will finally hit him, and he will rage and scream and cry until his voice is gone, and even then he will pound his fists against the floor like a child. "I was going to be a pilot!" he will yell, but nothing will come out. "I was going to fly!" For Gamzee, the awful realization of what has happened will take even longer to occur. If he dies before withdrawal, perhaps it never will.

The first tribute of District 7 is a crowd-pleaser. This is what our tribute should be, the people of District 7 think. Tall and handsome. Passably good at hiding his paralyzing fear. Jake English, a good sturdy name. And after spending his childhood climbing trees, he has grown to be built like one, broad-shouldered with big calloused hands. Next to him, the second tribute is vanishingly small, and they do not smile at her as her name is called. _Even up here they hate me_ , Calliope thinks. _God, I'm ugly even here._

It's smoggy and bitter in District 8, even in the sparsely green park at the top of the hill where the Reaping is held. Kanaya Maryam's face is impossible to read when she hears her name ring through the gray air, her nose and mouth covered with a surgical mask. As she reaches the stage, the District 8 escort covers his microphone and whispers to her urgently, "take it off, take it off." She pauses, her dark eyes hesitant. "Come on," says Rose Lalonde to her fellow tribute, "show them your fangs."

District 9 is a simple and unassuming district. It's accustomed to playing second fiddle to District 11, with only a bit of modest beauty in its endless fields of wheat — endless golden fields, some people like to say, but wheat is not quite golden in the dull District 9 sun. Jane Crocker is a simple girl to match her district, plain-faced, with white flour stains on her plain dress. Like many tributes before her, she cries plain clear tears. Like many Reapings before, a father tries rush up onto the stage and grab his child from the jaws of death. As the crowd sighs and tuts as he is removed, they do not know what is about to happen. The second tribute's name is called out: "Caliborn."

Of all the districts, District 10 is perhaps the most used to bloodshed. It is one thing to watch people kill each other on a flickering and torn projection screen. It's another to have hot thick blood spill from a cow's soft neck onto your clothes and hands. "It's okay, they need to die for us to live. They're just animals,"the butchers of District 10 have said, as they stripped the guts from sheep and pigs, and Tavros Nitram and Equius Zahhak believed them. Maybe it will be easier for them in the Arena, these two tall boys, to think this and believe. As they watch them bleed: _they're just animals._ As they kill them: _they need to die for me to live._

District 11, despite being the largest, the most populous, and undoubtedly the most wretched, has a Reaping that is orderly and still. The crowd stands in quiet, neat lines. Unlike some other districts, like 1 or 3 or 6, the citizens of District 11 do not ask for chairs, or lean against each other as the Reaping drags on. They are used to standing, and standing and standing and standing. Jade Harley and Dave Strider stand side by side, their fingers locked together and their hearts in their throats. District 11 will stand until it dies.

In District 12, Karkat Vantas struggles to walk to the stage. He takes one step. There is coal dust still under his fingernails — he couldn't clean it all out even after a solid five minutes of scrubbing. He takes another step. Nepeta Leijon swims in his vision, straight-backed and tear-stained. After so many years of staring, she refuses to meet his eye. He takes a third step, and stumbles. As his breath catches and his head spins, all he can think is _of course. Of course it had to be me._

"We have four hours and twenty one minutes to edit," the Senior Assistant Gamemaker says, checking his watch. "Starting now."


	2. Jade Harley Deals with Literal Shit

Jade works in a fertilizer depot. But the really incredible part is that she enjoys it.

"Most people think it's gross," she says, whisper-quiet in the darkness of the bunkroom.

"Your face is gross," Dave replies, wittily.

"But everyone deals with poop!" she continues, unfazed. "Poop is literally inside you right now. You have at least a little bit of poop inside you at _all times_."

"Wait, why are we talking about this?" Dave says, shifting down his bed to press his feet up against the wall.

"But suddenly when you have to deal with the rich and life-giving poop that is crop fertilizer, everyone flips out! And we're talking about this because this girl Etta in the mess hall said that her job is better than mine."

"Where does she work?"

"Irrigation."

"Her job is objectively better than yours."

" _Dave._ "

"Cool your jets, Harley," Dave says, and holds up his hands in placation, the gesture invisible in the darkness. "Your job doesn't suck because you're elbow-deep in shit every day and are probably developing a respiratory infection. I mean, hell, at least you're not out in the sun. Your job sucks because Tarrow is your supervisor."

"I can deal with Tarrow."

"Yeah," Dave says, "I know."

"Hey!" a voice barks suddenly, piercing the darkness. All of the air seems suddenly to be gone from the room. Bodies tense on every bed. Dave's breath is quick and high in his chest, as inaudible as he can make it. Jade squeezes her eyes shut and trembles, unable to stop her left hand from twitching. A dark shape moves through the room, pausing at several beds. One of the beds it stops at is Jade's. She presses her hand against her leg, hard. The shape moves on.

"No more talking!" the shape says. And then, a horrible smile in its voice, "you all need your sleep before tomorrow. Big day."

The door opens, and then closes. Jade's hand doesn't stop shaking. Dave's breathing doesn't slow. He thinks about tomorrow, about his brother's face, bloody and screaming and televised, about his 27 tesserae. A few minutes later, Jade rolls slowly and carefully onto her side to stare at him through the semi-darkness. A whisper.

"Dave."

There is a brief pause, and she thinks he might be asleep, or at least pretending.

"What?"

She reaches over to his bunk.

"Touch the hand that poop has touched," she whispers, smiling, lacing their fingers together, and the tension breaks, and Dave laughs silently in protest but doesn't move his hand away.

 _It will be fine, Dave._

 _Just you watch, I'll win this thing._

 _Jade, look after him until I'm gone._

 _No, no, Dave, don't cry, I'll win, I promise._

 _I'm going beat them, no one else can move like me._

 _I'll win._

 _No, please! Let me stay, I need more time— my brother—!_

 _Dave, listen, I'll win! I'll win!_

 _I'll come home to you._

That morning, they don't go to work. It is the only time all year that they have what could be called a vacation.

Jade sticks her head under the spout as Dave works the water-pump handle. It takes a dozen pumps to get going, and Jade shrieks as the cold water finally hits her.

"God, that feels nice," she says, sitting back on her haunches, her dreadlocks dripping and leaving wet marks on the back of her shirt. "Come on, now you!"

The speakers at the top of the wall chime three notes, and a voice booms across the courtyard.

"The train departs in thirty minutes and will not delay. Please be ready to report to the station promptly. Repeat: The train departs—"

"Come on, Harley," says Dave, and grabs her hand. "Let's get fancied up."

They change in the bunkroom with the other workers their age. Marcie walks from bed to bed and hands out clean white and gray dresses, crisply folded button-down shirts, and old but newly-shined shoes. Usually they are also given dark gray pants, but when they ask, Marcie just shrugs. Dave wears his regular work pants, brown with the knees rubbed tan. Jade ties her hair up in faded blue scarf and leaves her shoes on her bedspread.

"I think they're the same pair they gave me last year," she says. "They pinch my toes." She dons her dirty boots instead.

Six minutes to go, they stop by Jade's grandfather's house. He sits in his acacia-wood chair in the house's only room. Someone has dressed him this morning, probably Wren from next door.

"Are you ready to go to the Reaping, Grandpa?" Jade asks. He doesn't reply. He rarely does.

They walk slowly to the station, Grandpa Harley leaning heavily against Dave's shoulder. When they board the train, they have only a minute to spare, and most of the compartments are full. They end up in the last compartment, Jade and Grandpa Harley sitting, Dave standing over them with his hands braced on the low ceiling.

The train jolts into motion. The wheels creak and churn and shed their rust.

"Switch with me," Jade hisses suddenly.

"What? No."

"Switch with me!" Her left hand begins to shake. Dave pulls her up by her waist, and swings around to sit in her empty seat. She leans over him, with one hand against the wall above his head, and wishes her hair were loose to hide her face.

"Mr. Tarrow!" says a voice from the front of the compartment.

Tarrow is tall and starting to bald, and his gray eyes are narrowed as he walks through the compartment. He has to stoop slightly to fit, and for anyone else his posture would look undignified — hunched and awkward, shuffling with his odd step. He meets Dave's eye as he passes. Jade, her back to him, angles her head away, but to no avail.

"Ms. Harley," he says. Jade exhales in a short gust, and turns to face him, slipping on a smile.

"Mr. Tarrow," she says.

"Why are you standing, Ms. Harley? I believe there is an empty seat at the front of this compartment."

"I just wanted to be near my grandfather, sir."

He considers Grandpa Harley carefully. Grandpa Harley looks back at him, confused.

"Your grandfather looks rather thin. Is he ill?"

"No, sir."

"Well. One should always be sure to care for one's family. Isn't that right, Mr. Strider?"

"Yes, sir." Dave's voice is soft.

"Hmm. Ms. Harley, I must insist that you take better care of your elders. Perhaps another tessera or two for next year, to keep him fed?"

Jade stares at her hands, mind racing. Tarrow tilts his head, waiting for her reply. She closes her eyes.

"Yes."

"What was that?"

She looks up at him.

"Yes, sir. I'm happy to provide for my grandfather."

There is a long moment in which Jade and Tarrow look at each other. Tarrow's face, usually so blank, flickers with something Jade cannot identify. She frowns slightly, and he is the one to break his gaze.

"You'll be working a double shift in the processing room tomorrow, since you obviously enjoy wearing your work boots so much."

He shuffles away, his step quicker than usual. The door between compartments slides shut with a hiss.

"Fuck," Jade says quietly, and sinks to the ground.

"Jesus Christ!" Dave says, quite a bit louder.

A mutter of sympathy travels up and down the compartment.

"What was that?" Dave asks, and slides down to sit next to Jade on the floor. "I thought you said you could handle him."

"I don't know! I don't know." Jade rubs her face with her hands. "He seemed strange today. Stranger than usual."

Grandpa Harley looks down at her. His face is blank and uncomprehending. Jade sighs and buries her face in the crook of Dave's shoulder.

"Etta was right. My job is shit."

 _Jade sits at the foot of his bed, her legs folded neatly under her. Dave is under his blankets, only the top of his head visible._

 _She rests her hand on his side, warm even through the wool._

 _He says something to her. His voice is muffled and tearstained, but she hears._

 _She says yes, a serious eleven-year-old yes. With that yes, she makes a promise._

In the square, a group of workers have thoroughly cleaned the front of the Hall of Justice, and the white stone gleams in the sunlight. Penelope Mendicant, District 11's escort, is illuminated from all sides when she takes the stage.

Penelope is tall and pale, and the pantsuit she wears is pastel blue and pink. Her unnaturally straight blond hair, which usually hangs loose, is swept back from her face and tucked beneath a strange feathered hat. She clutches a yellow purse tightly in one hand. She looks odd among the town officials, and her voice is nervous and stuttering.

"Citizens of District 11," she begins.

Dave and Jade are close to the stage, with the other older children. They stand so near each other their shoulders touch. Their eyes are on Penelope. No one in the crowd cares about her speech, but even the young ones stand still and quiet, watching Penelope and her pastel suit intently. When she looks out at the people of District 11, her words falter.

The sun rises higher in the sky.

When her speech is done, she walks over to the Reaping Ball with tottering steps. Jade wonders why she wears high heels when she obviously can't manage them and is already so tall.

"And the first tribute is—" she reaches into the Ball and retrieves a slip of paper.

She clears her throat.

"Dave Strider."

Jade does not take her eyes from the stage. Penelope Mendicant stands over the glass Reaping Ball, her eyes searching the crowd curiously. A light breeze ruffles the feathers on her hat, and makes the paper twist wildly in her hand. Jade notices that she is wearing pale blue lipstick to match her suit. Penelope's eyes light on someone in the crowd, and she leans forward to beckon. Dave is warm against Jade's shoulder, and then he is gone.

A peacekeeper helps him up the steps onto the stage, and he walks to stand next to Penelope. His face is pinched with unshed tears. He stares at his hands, and tries to slow his breath. The whole square is silent. Jade's mind is blank and disbelieving.

"Yes, well," says Penelope, the microphone cracking her voice. "Now, our second tribute."

A second slip of paper retrieved from the ball. A second delicate clearing of the throat.

"Echidna Tarrow."

"No!" bellows a voice from the back of the crowd. Penelope starts and almost drops the paper, and people look around in confusion to see Mr. Tarrow jump forward and knock over a cordon as he starts to yell.

"No, you said— you bastards, you said that you would keep her safe if I just—" and then a peacekeeper hits him in the stomach with a baton, and he doubles over, gasping.

The crowd remains orderly and still, but a murmur starts to rise, louder and louder as the citizens of District 11 began to wonder. _If I just_ — what? _You would keep her safe if I just_ — what was Tarrow about to say?

Jade frowns. Her minding is racing as a peacekeeper grabs Echidna Tarrow roughly by the arm and starts to pull her towards the stage. What was that flicker of something she saw earlier in Tarrow's face, when he told her to take those extra tesserae? She had thought perhaps it was triumph, but now she realizes. It was relief. It was fear.

A thought enters Jade's head. A stupid, dangerous thought. The world is spinning around her. Everything seems to be speeding up. If she wants to do this, she has to do it now.

When she stared at Tarrow before, she would have thought this was justice, but when she looks at him here his face is open and tearful, and they need three peacekeepers just to hold him back now, and there's little Echidna on the stage in her white dress, her expression blank and confused just like Jade's grandfather, and then there's Dave, panic rising as he realizes what Jade might do, and Penelope Mendicant has a little slip of paper in each hand, and oh god, oh god, Dave's brother's bloody face, and then the memory of a promise, _Jade please don't leave me too_ , and Echidna starts to cry, and Dave yells out—

Jade breathes.

Jade takes one step forward.


	3. Dead Girl Mining

It's early in the morning on Reaping Day, and it's snowing in District 2. Aradia walks down the quiet early-morning street, her pack a comforting weight across her shoulders, a coil of rope bouncing against her leg at every step. The snowflakes hang suspended in the air, illuminated yellow in the light of the old streetlamps. The mountain is up ahead, a dark shape against a darker sky.

In someone's front lawn, there are two earthy disruptions to the freshly fallen snow. A girl leans against a shovel, catching her breath. Aradia pauses just for a second: this is her mistake.

"Move along citizen, I'm investigating," the girl says, as she hoists her shovel to begin digging a third hole. She tosses a shovelful of gravelly dirt over her shoulder theatrically, and it hits the snow in a wide spray. The girl looks suddenly at Aradia and exclaims in a voice that is unnecessarily loud. "Wait just a hot second! You're that ghost chick, right?"

"Hey, Pyrope!" someone shouts from a second-story window. "Go back to bed, you crazy fuck!"

"You're having a weather-based auditory hallucination!" the girl shouts back. "Also, mind your own beeswax!"

"I'm not a ghost," Aradia says softly, and walks away.

She gets to the mountain ten minutes before the start of her shift. The warning bell chimes for the first time just as she enters the locker room. She straps herself quickly into her harness, and dons the mask that kept the stone dust out of her eyes and lungs. Her pick holstered on her left side, she ascends the lift to the fourth level as the warning bell echoes through the mountain a second time.

"You're working deep exploratory again today, kid," the foreman says as Aradia exits the lift.

"Yes, sir," Aradia says.

"Don't worry, you'll be out of here in time to get cleaned up for this afternoon."

"Yes, sir."

The boy in charge of the winch is new at his job, and Aradia's descent down the shaft is jerky and uncomfortable. _A ghost would not feel this_ , Aradia thinks, as the straps of her harness bite into her skin. But as she descends lower, into the deepest depths of the mountain quarry, and the rope that holds her becomes invisible in the growing darkness, for just a second she is floating, insubstantial in a claustrophobic sky. In the faint light of her halogen lamp, the glass of her mask makes her eyes look empty and pale.

Terezi Pyrope is on a mission.

She approaches the foot of the mountain, her breath misting in the cold air. The snow is thinner and wetter now, sleeting down to plaster her hair to her forehead and soak through her insufficient sweater. Terezi Pyrope had a dream last night that she can only just barely remember.

"Cadet Pyrope," says the peacekeeper at the door, and she salutes him with cold hands and a click of her shivering heels.

Inside, the fluorescent lights buzz and flicker. Terezi's locker is at the far end of the cadet's locker room, and she passes several of her tired early-morning peers.

"Think you have enough shit in there?" Petra Sill asks her, laughing, as Terezi opens her locker door and lifts her knee to hold back the contents with a practiced motion.

"Nah," Terezi says with a sharp-toothed grin. A couple pieces of chalk escape and roll listlessly away on the metal floor. Her helmet, in a fit of petulant irony, tips off of the top shelf and bounces painfully off of her head. Petra snorts and pulls her gloves on.

"See you inside, Red 1," she says.

"I have a couple extra dragon pics if you want to emulate my unparalleled sense of interior design!" Terezi shouts after her.

She extricates her training gear and suits up.

It's even colder in the sparring room, but Terezi knows she'll warm up fast enough.

"Cadet Ortega!" she shouts, and across the room a blue-helmeted boy heaves a sigh.

"What's up, Pyrope?" he says.

"Your choice, 3 minutes prep," she replies, and he scowls.

"Fine. Anything but sabers."

"Wuss."

"Hey, give a Blue boy a fighting chance. How about singlestick?"

"Ha! You'll be a black-and-blue boy when we're done!"

They salute and face off on the matt, both in upright guard. Terezi's singlestick, as with the rest of her equipment, is a bright and delicious red.

"So, Ortega," she says, and watches the tense of his shoulders. She knows he isn't used to shit-talking during a match, and she plans to use this to her advantage. "Have you gotten any better at your footwork since last time?"

"Um," he says, and she advances and tries for a hit at his left ribs, and then right ribs, and then right cheek. He blocks each neatly, and always with the forte of his blade. _Hmm_ , she thinks, _he has gotten better._

"Nice," she says, and flashes him a dangerous smile. "Keep that up and you'll be Blue 1 in no time."

"I am Blue 1," he says with a furrow of his brow, and advances. He's strong and quick, but bad at maintaining opposition, and she lands a hit on his right ribs. Someone from the other side of the room cheers her on.

"You're kidding!" she says. "Oh, I forgot that Dressler got bumped down because of his foot injury. What a shame, huh?"

Silent, he feints low and then fails to land a hit to her left cheek. Backing up, Terezi switches to a hanging guard. She has not stopped smiling. A few cadets have stopped their training to watch the two of them spar.

"Say, Ortega, do you know how Dressler received that injury? All I've heard is what I'm _sure_ is a spurious rumor."

"I don't know." Keeping his singlestick angled low as well, Ortega positions his right leg slightly out from under the protection of his guard. Terezi's smile grows wider. She loves it when her opponent tries to fool her with such an obvious ruse.

"I heard his harness failed on a quarry shift," she says, and Ortega gives a noncommittal shrug. His right leg creeps further out from under his guard, tempting. "Well," she adds, "I say 'his' harness…" and she trails off. Ortega's eyes dart up to her face.

"What do you mean?" he asks sharply. Terezi shrugs briefly, and then lunges to take his bait. He withdraws his leg immediately as expected, and Terezi moves her singlestick back up to her high hanging guard, where he is surprised to find his cut blocked. His lower half now open, Terezi hits him unwielding on the thigh, and he stumbles, leg buckling.

"I mean," she says, "that the faulty piece-of-shit equipment that sent him to the hospital and dumped him unceremoniously down the ranks of the Blue Team probably wasn't his personal harness, since I found that one when I was doing some casual early-morning excavation in your front yard."

Ortega gapes at her. "Pyrope," he begins, "you piece of shit—"

She opts for a false beat and aims a cut at his hilt. Off guard, her raises his point to block, and she comes in under his guard, smashing a blow in at his ribs perhaps a little harder than necessary. Winded and gasping, he loses hold of his singlestick with only a light tap, and staggers to the side, falling to a knee, palms open and surrendering. Terezi leans over him. All around them, the room has hushed and the cadets are watching curiously. Petra Sill folds her arms across her chest, her lips pursed.

"You will no longer lead Blue Team," Terezi says. "You will not be allowed to train. You will no longer be a cadet. You will never be a peacekeeper." She leans in closer, her hair brushing his cheek and her lips just beside his ear. She is remembering her dream, and not smiling any more. "You will not," she says softly, "volunteer."

She stands straight and walks away, letting her singlestick clatter to the ground.

"Pyrope—" Petra Sill says, a warning. Terezi turns in time to block Ortega's punch, but he has picked up his singlestick again, and in a wild flail it connects with the right side of her face. Her cheek red and smarting, she grabs the shaft of the stick and twists it out of his hand.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" she says, almost casually, and breaks his nose.

When she takes the stage, Terezi is straight-backed and proud, and the bruise on her cheek is starting to purple. She is wearing peacekeeper white— a bitter color, she thinks, but in the wet afternoon light it has a strangely sweet edge. The clothes of Dimitriy Dragov, the District 2 Escort, seem an even darker black beside her.

"Aradia Megido," he says in clipped tones. Terezi looks out over the crowd. Ortega stands off to the side, his shoulders hunched, nose bandaged, and lips and chin still stained pink with the blood. He does not look up. He does not speak or raise his hand.

Aradia climbs up the stairs to the Reaping stage, her feet seeming barely to touch the steps as she rises. She does not look at Terezi, at her white clothes or purple cheek. Her long hair is loose down her back, and she hasn't managed to brush all of the stone dust out of it, and it is beautiful. Terezi grins at her as she passes, a crazy sharp-toothed grin. She is remembering the dream she had the night before. She is smiling the smile of someone greeting an old friend.

"Hey there, ghost girl," she says.


End file.
